However the initially mentioned device has the following disadvantages:
(a) The winding device is here formed as a horizontally pivotable finger. It must be brought back into the initial position by a coil spring. This coil spring can break.
(b) In the pivoting of the winding finger it is necessary to apply force both to provide the spring stress and to pivot the winding finger. Since the winding fingers must be returned quickly, considerable forces are needed.
(c) The forces are expressed in higher wear of those parts which are necessary for the application of the forces.
(d) The snapping back of the winding fingers causes considerable noise.
(e) The noise is also increased by the guide device which is necessary for controlling the winding fingers.
(f) The winding threads generate fluff, because oscillatory forces, having a saw-tooth course as regards time and tension, act upon them in the eye of the winding finger.
(g) In addition to the eye in the middle finger however, as in a sewing machine brake eyes are necessary on account of the oscillatory saw-tooth movement, in order to keep the winding thread under traction. Therefore the winding thread is unnecessarily subjected to tension stress, breaks sooner and produces fluff for this reason too. These additional brake eyes are an additional expense. Moreover one of these brake eyes must be controlled in upward and downward movement in order thus to some extent to compensate the reciprocating movement of the winding finger as regards thread tension.
(h) In practice the winding thread does not always run in the desired manner around the winding finger. Rather on account of the discontinuous movement it sometimes lays itself several times around the winding finger, and thus the winding thread breaks.
(i) The distance from winding finger to winding finger must be great, on account of their pivot distance. Therefore a small spacing is not possible.
(j) Due to the necessary guide devices, the eye devices and the winding fingers, the machine is very inaccessible at the top, so that it is very difficult to carry out repairs or to effect new settings.
(k) For safety reasons in the case of a 26-inch machine it is possible to knit only at twelve revolutions per minute.
(l) It is not possible for example to provide two parallel lines in the knitted fabric running down from the top and lying close beside one another.
(m) A 26-inch machine has 76 knitting systems and 96 spools, that is the number of spools is considerably greater than the number of the knitting systems.
(n) In practice it is not possible to feed two winding threads at the same time to the same winding finger.
Furthermore a device is known the winding finger of which is rotatable about a vertical axis. Possibly it is rotatable in a range of 360.degree.. It is rotatable by means of a rack and pinion drive and must always be brought back again from the end pivot range. This means that here again there is an oscillatory movement. The winding finger has at its end a distance of 0.5 mm. from the needle bed. With the winding finger no stitches can be formed, but only effect threads can be inserted. It must be ensured that the winding finger does not collide with the needles in the high position. One is not in a position to wind on successive knitting systems. Rather it is possible to wind only on every fourth knitting system. It is also disadvantageous that winding is effected on one occasion with the machine running direction and on the other contrarily thereof. Thus different insertion structures are obtained. In one oscillation cycle the machine must be overtaken, which is unfavourable, while it is possible to work contrarily of the machine running direction only in the second oscillation cycle.